The effervescent musician Sir Richard Stilgoe led the way as a team of skydivers raised over £7,000 for the Orpheus Centre in Godstone.

“I enjoyed it much more than the first time because I knew what was going to happen,” says the 71-year-old, who had previously jumped from 10,000ft. “I could just concentrate on enjoying it rather than experiencing three minutes of desperate terror.”

Sir Richard upped the ante this time with a 15,000ft jump with Go Skydive at Old Sarum Airfield in Salisbury.

“It was awesome!” he says. “The first minute I was falling through clouds and then I saw Salisbury Cathedral and I thought ‘I do hope we miss that!’”

The other jumpers included three solicitors from TWM Solicitors in Reigate, and a group of four students from Croydon’s Brit School – one of whom had never even been on a plane before.

“It will make her next trip on Easyjet a bit of a disappointment when she has to stay on it and land rather than leaping out of the nearest door,” says Sir Richard, who founded Orpheus Centre.